A minute to reflect days before the release of the Pentax Full Frame

Inside information on Pentax forums and rumors states that the so called Pentax K1 will be released on the 25th of Febuary in time for the CP Camera and Photo World Premier Show in Yokohama Japan. The official pentax.com website states that it will be released in their spring of 2016, so we can comfortably assume that this is not just a coincidence but fact. We will see the camera being handled and have the specs in just a few weeks. Unfortunately Ricoh has been able to master some very average marketing as per website teaser which is leaving a lot of pentaxians quite distressed and angry, but one would hope that we can only assume that this is intentional, to keep the camera's specifications a secret.

As we count down to the final days prior to the release of the long awaited Pentax Full Frame, I find it fitting to state some facts about Pentax's past and what we could expect for the future based on their pride and success for ground breaking technology.

-1952 Asahiflex 1 First Japanese 35mm film SLR camera
-1960 Pentax Spotmatic Pentax pioneers world's first TTL metering system
-1971 Pentax invent multi-coating lens process (Pentax SMC coatings) used by Zeiss today. Prior nobody managed to put more than 4 layers of coatings on their lenses.
-1976 Pentax MX World's smallest and lightest SLR camera
-1980 Pentax ME-F World's first autofocus SLR
-1987 Pentax SF-7 World's first SLR with automatic pop up flash
-2006 K100D first body with in body stabilisation, K10 hailed by Popular Photography and Imaging magazine as "an all-star player, was named as a finalist for their 2007 "Camera of the Year" award, best DSLR by TIPA
-2011 Pentax 645D wins 'camera of the year' and voted best professional DSLR by TIPA
-2013 Pentax K3 pioneer's world's first selectable anti-aliasing system, wins best DSLR of the year (TIPA)
-2015 DXO testing reveals 645Z to have the best sensor performance of any camera it has ever tested.

-2016 In 2001 Pentax abort launch of the world's first full frame DSLR due performance issues with Phillips designed sensor and now we finally await the launch of the K1 Pentax Full Frame. We know it will be the first FF digital slr with in body shake reduction, we know it will accept all K Mount lenses and will have built in crop mode for DA lenses, and we know that the LCD screen is far more advanced than any other model on the market (judging from the teaser site photos). So what will this camera have that will set it aside from the others?